Legacies of the Manhattan Project

The Manhattan Project was, arguably, the defining event of the twentieth century. More even than the Second World War itself, the Manhattan Project and its Cold War legacy altered the course of world history. For decades shrouded in secrecy and nourished by fear, we are only now—some seventy-five years on—beginning to understand the full effects of that event and its complex aftermath.

The various legacies of the Manhattan Project have been central to a remarkably diverse and cross-disciplinary body of scholarship. Moreover, ongoing declassification of Manhattan Project-era materials and opening of archives has allowed access to new sources that have forced reevaluations of key decisions and outcomes in virtually every field of research touching on the atomic and nuclear age.

“Legacies of the Manhattan Project” will bring these disparate academic conversations together at a key moment for understanding the origins and consequences of our nuclear past, present, and future.

We invite papers that deal with any aspect of this topic, regardless of disciplinary perspective. Possible themes include (but are not limited to) reconsiderations of

the rise of the military-industrial complex

the history of science and technology

the sociology and politics of the Cold War

environmental impacts and waste remediation

literatures of the environment

the impact of technology on the American West and its indigenous and settler cultures.